Month: April 2014

Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story. (Henry Jenkins)

Transmedia is placing an idea to consume various elements or materials to create a further world of adventure and excitement. This world or famous media is then processed and passed on further to build upon through multiple devices or channels to continue this story. It is when it starts by a book, to a movie, to a series, to a show, to games, to apps and further on.

A major example connected to the Xbox is the Halo Franchise.

The Halo games have made a major impact upon the Xbox. It has gone from graphic novels to animations, figurines and movies even the Windows 8 phones with the new cross of Siri ‘Cortana’ one of the main characters in the Halo games.

‘…Collective intelligence, to refer to new social structures that enable the production and circulation of knowledge within a networked society.’ (Henry Jenkins) Social structures are created in the halo world with the realistic due to the adaption of making ‘Clans’ which battle each other but also can relate to the society with sports such as ‘Capture the Flag’ and ‘Odd Ball’ both now turned into real sports for a more realistic view of the game within a society.

‘…They introduce potential plots which can not be fully told or extra details which hint at more than can be revealed.’ (Henry Jenkins)This link between hints and learning more from the story through the different ways that Halo has been put across through the different areas example being ‘Halo Wars’ leak on who truly Masterchef was compared to the original games.

The Xbox is a machine that features games with in-depth stories that are passed around. The Xbox supply’s the player with the game rather than a story. These games put forth various stories which unfold more meaning and impact to the world originally created. In turn, The Xbox does supply people with Transmedia storytelling but only through its games.

Organisational Shift: Producers of Individuals to wide community placing content.
– The Xbox community has a major fan base of players all over the world. It is a machine ‘made for Gamers by Gamers.’ Xbox is more powerful than its users as it controls what they see within the content of games, places the content and add ons to the Xbox. However this does not entitles the verbal content made from multiplayer chat systems.

Fluid Movement: Role from Leader to participants and users of content.
-Xbox is created for the Community of Players it targets. It is a console ‘made by Gamers for Gamers’ which stabilises the role between Xbox and Player. However this is not entirely true as Xbox never gives full power to their players to place content on Xbox systems. Xbox only gives power to the distributors who place games on their consoles with the content they choose. This all comes back to Xbox’s power over all its relationships with gamers and distributors as it always has the last say for its content.

Unfinished: Never fully finished and always improving.
– The Xbox machine is always being recreated into bigger and better machines to provide ‘entertainment’ for ‘all audiences.’ However the Xbox one being a finished product it must continuously be updated, have add ons and new objects for its players to continue to play multiplayer or solo games. These add ons and updates keep the players motivated and edger to buy or wait for improvement to test for themselves.

Permissive: Refers to the content being continuously improving while copyright laws prohibit unauthorised commercial use displays.
-Xbox has rules and regulations that must be abided by however improvement to the content is always continued through updates and add ons rather than content from its players due to its closed software.

During BCM110 blogs there has been a number of issues and subjects that have been debated and changed my way of thinking. I have seen various Blogs which show so many different perspectives to my own that it is quite fascinating that a question can be answered in numerous ways. These are some of the subjects we discussed about:
–Denotation and Connotation – Children’s Influence -Moral Panic– Public Sphere – Mass Media

Denotation and Connotation was one of my favourites as it brought out a creative side of me where we looked at an image and saw it for what it was then ventured deeper into another meaning of what truly was being put across. This image of ‘Signified’ and ‘Signifier.’ I found through this work by picking up various magazines and going on adventures through the internet that vast amounts of pictures how very different meanings instead of what was actually seen.

Image: Denotation and Connotation

Children’s influences on society. A lot of the media’s development and technology is further looking for ways to keep the younger and more fragile minds away from the internet in order to see nothing too harsh or very wrong. Though the advancement of technology is never ending. The future is ahead of us and society is taking to long to adapt. Children being younger minds and easier to manipulate or react to new things take on this approach leading to a Moral panic for society to cling on to these children to help or prevent any risks from under going.

Image: Children and the Internet

The Public sphere was also an amazing discussion about what shows were really attracting their audience and what they wanted them to view. It seemed at times that reality shows or popular shows had a message behind them all. Some shows portraying news and politics within an animation back ground while others on how they treated their contestants gave them greater power. Such examples can be American Dad and Big Brother.

Image: American Dad

Finally the major view that changed my perspective of the internet and social media is who truly controlled the Mass Media. Originally I didn’t think the number of most popular websites and such could be only a majority of six individuals who bought out these companies. As I only use YouTube and Facebook. I found that by researching and finding out why we needed to know who controlled the Mass Media was because of their influence and their message they all portray.

Image: Control over Media

Further more I wanted to leave with this Reflection that not only was the subjects and issued faced were interesting but as well as viewing and meeting new peoples blogs which made this experience more outstanding.

Yesterday I viewed the new Gameplay Trailer for ‘The Evil Within.’ I have reviewed the first trailer released as of last year and the difference and similarities are quite interesting and put a new perspective as to what is to come.

During the first gameplay trailer it didn’t really tell how the story was evolving or where it was targeting. It was mainly just targeted on HOW the gameplay is. They wanted to show how you use the game, the textures, the atmosphere and contact with enemies. It did however glimpse upon various scenes of gameplay within the game to show connections and the story. This second gameplay trailer however is more targeting the story and what the game is truly about.

Your character still comes back from a cop/ detective background as you are on a scene with various corpses. You slowly emerge into the mansion, not knowing what to expect but by shock of seeing all the deaths surrounding the scene yet you are set out to find what happened. Several scenes begin after this clip as you get sneak peeks into maybe the locations you find and encounter with other enemies. Yet I believe there is a more mental and supernatural side to all of this. The images do not seem that of a realty view. It takes you to deep dark atmospheric activities where say the car crash and the corpse of the goat surrounded in the forest. However there are the areas in which contradict these views being the sunflowers in the field as well as the soft melodic music playing in the background.

You can further look deeper into the cut and skip scenes with the various actions and events displaced. The mansion you see further with the vivid background and screeching noise of the gates opening actually connect to the first mansion. Very similar and look quite the same. I believe that there may be this connection between two different dimensions within the character we play as through this place. This also being from the title, ‘The Evil Within’ gives more suspicious view of this sense of realty cross mental speculations of nightmares we create within the problems of everyday maybe even the scenes and events our character faces overlapped to come back to him. I bring the examples of the river of blood, doors opening to a crushing machine and further more.

It gives you a sense that your character is not in the real world. You seem to be in a mix, where conflict and violence roam the world with little light. You fight to survive rather than finding out what is truly happening. This is my view, and as more information is put out it will probably change but I will keep this up to date.

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In recent news over the last two days has been the constant and overwhelming news of Xbox One developing an emulator to be backwards compatibility. In the two articles I read, one said that the Playstation 4 also did not have this ability and were thinking into it as much as Xbox. Though it is interesting that one of the articles that former Xbox Chief Don Mattrick stated, ‘If you’re backwards compatible, you’re really backwards.’ This view can be debated and controversial. Xbox players can debate that a lot of players rather Xbox 360 due to money wise or lack of games as well as the variety of old common games that they play over and over again.

The reason why so many people want the Xbox one to be backwards compatible is because of how you can still connect with friends on Xbox 360 or play your older games. It broadens your Audience of players to want to buy more and play more. And it was stated as of last year that Microsoft was thinking of this idea and one day hoping to make it possibly through Azure Cloud Servers though this cannot be clarified completely.

As the Xbox One and Playstation 4 are slowly placing themselves out into the world it does not help the fact that all the downloads, updates, continuous new programs and such are not what their Audiences wants. They want a game to play with all their friends or on their own with good quality and good graphics. Even though the machines were built for various reasons and the designs were one that made them stand out, like what Frank Savage at Microsoft stated by the built development of the console, though it is not about the console but the way the audience is seen and consume their product.

If you viewed the clip fully, you would see what is coming for Window Phones. I have stated the new software for the Windows Phone to be brought out slowly and seeing this makes me wonder how close till it will be. Relevant news has come out that the update will slowly work its way through the Windows phones though this will take a period of two to three months. Get your phone ready for the new experience while I keep you posted.

From the creators of the all famous horror game ‘Amnesia’ comes a new revolution of horror in their upcoming game, ‘Soma. ’ You play as a man named Simon who seems to have found himself in an abandoned Science Facility in which he has no recollection from. It is a survival horror that is very similar to ‘Amnesia’ yet with little hints that take you elsewhere.
You can choose and walk through the story by understanding and finding clues to the storyline rather than just wondering endlessly with just wanting to complete without understanding. It is a game where you must interact with its environment to develop a path. Little clues and hints are placed throughout the game to reveal story and glimpse of characters. Some may even show background to your character and where you are to be revealed slowly yet this sudden sense of horror does not seen to be quite out there. It seems to be lighter rather than continuous jump scares.

The sense to detail is made with the features, textures and animations as well as the voice acting being spot on. It intrigues and connects the player to its characters emotions. Even the animation gives you chills at times when you view bodies hooked up to machines with a glimmer of hope with booming life but rather an electric bolt surging through their body.

The environment is very different to what you would have expected. It is not in space, nor on land but in the sea. This is why a lot of people viewed this perspective to be like the common world known from the game, ‘Bioshock’ centred in Rapture. However the story goes into depth, you can travel under water to vast locations and better understandings. The atmosphere of the darkness while sudden twitches of sounds makes you nervous.

I think the new approach that the creators have taken will make the audience grow with enthusiasm and impatience as it will be a hit game for PS4 and PC.

America’s Next Top Model, is a very popular fashion/reality show that has been around since 2003. It is a competition for women looking for a career within the modelling industries and seen as supermodel of America. How the show comes together is individuals come for auditions in order to be placed in the final group to further compete against each other. The judges critique contestant’s progress. During its amount of time the show has been through a range of stereotypes to reach out to different audiences to higher their views.

How a woman is viewed is a very common question for people that direct it at magazines and modelling industries as they tend to portray a specific woman with certain body features to be acknowledged as a supermodel rather than her personality. This has always been questioned and debated by many females. A view of a woman beingskinny or slim infuriated women to not want to see this view in the public’s eye to influence teens or children. A good strategy is how ‘America’s next top Model’ took this question towards their ‘cycles’ and changed up themes and stereotypes to make it more equal as well as create a bigger audience.

Image: Too Skinny

Weight is always viewed critical for a modelling career as the contestant needs to have a good body rather than an intelligent mind. A lot of issues have been brought up about this when questioning a woman’s body. The way modelling industries come across is that they starve people in order to become the individual they need to be even when the show does not look at individuals who suffer from Bulimia or Anorexia but if they did acknowledge it, it would only be for views which offends viewers.

How the show promotes more views for a vast audience is to achieve a need for various activities to strike peoples interest. Being that this show is a reality show they take that advantage and use it on their contestants, their emotions, their background, fights, and attitudes that they find within these people in the audition’s to place in the show to make it more interesting. A lot of viewers indeed like this and it attracts them but this is an issue with how the show operates for its contestants. They do activities and place their contestants at risk which sometimes can lead them over the edge without thinking and just only be doing it for the show.

These issues and views contribute to debates and discussion made to look at the perspectives within the public sphere as it is a mediated public sphere that is controlled and focused upon key areas of the show in order to pin point only what the audience wants rather than the contestants.

The original Xbox was made for gamers by gamers. It focused on the games rather than the media sense it was going to become. This is when the audience grew to teens, children and families due to development and evolution to the console by converging.

The internet was Xbox’s key to success as the access to various media made it converge with other devices. You can download games, music, movies, even short cuts to show on your menu of your account of relevant news or articles or add ons such as YouTube. Through this access to various websites and information comes with rights and policy’s for all players to abide by. The Three agreements ‘Terms of use,’ ‘Service Agreement’ and ‘Code of Conduct’ come together to help the safety and security of the players account especially that of a child’s account. Where young children playing on the console are kept controlled on their views and access to various websites with controlled multiplayer connections to prevent them from foul behaviour or conflict.

Xbox is a society grown over time to debate and discuss opinions towards the media, news and games etc. This fan base is as if an army who argues the most common question against the other most popular gaming console PlayStation 4 on which is better. This relationship between Xbox and its users shows simply the vast amount of fan base it has towards the machine and its use in society. Reflecting that of consumers and their producer.The Xbox One is a successful model of technology that has evolved. The add on to the Xbox One which gave it more success is the Kinect features. The Kinect helped the machine become more realistic without any controllers but your voice and movement. It would follow spoken commands, hand gestures and Skype abilities.